But the movie version of The Island, starring Michael Caine and David Warner, failed at the box office when released in 1980.ĭuring the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well as his previous works. Benchley again wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, leading to the Bermuda Triangle mystery. Directed by Peter Yates and starring Robert Shaw, Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, The Deep was the second-highest grossing release of 1977 after Star Wars, although its box office tally fell well short of Jaws. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz. This 1976 novel is based on Benchley's chance meeting in Bermuda with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National Geographic. His reasonably successful second novel, The Deep, is about a honeymooning couple discovering two sunken treasures on the Bermuda reefs-17th century Spanish gold and a fortune in World War Two-era morphine-who are subsequently targeted by a drug syndicate.

He also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916.

He developed the idea of a man-eating shark terrorising a community after reading of a fisherman Frank Mundus catching a 4,550 pound great white shark off the coast of Long Island in 1964. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.Īfter graduating from college, he worked for The Washington Post, then as an editor at Newsweek and a speechwriter in the White House. His younger brother, Nat Benchley, is a writer and actor. He was the son of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of Algonquin Round Table founder Robert Benchley. Benchley also wrote The Deep and The Island which were also adapted into films.īenchley was from a literary family. The subsequent film directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Benchley is generally acknowledged as the first summer blockbuster. The success of the book led to many publishers commissioning books about mutant rats, rabid dogs and the like threatening communities. Peter Bradford Benchley was an American author best known for writing the novel Jaws and co-writing the screenplay for its highly successful film adaptation.

The deep novel peter benchley